Down in a hall below the railway tracks by London Bridge, a bottle of wine is paintedon an otherwise blank map of Asia. The bottle is over Narayangaon, a little Maharashtratown thats put India on the worlds wine map. Its also the only Asiantown that finds a place on the map at the Vinopolis, the London-based wine museum.
Indian food is now an old English story. But Indian wine? Never good enough to matcheven cooking wines from France, some Indian wines are now selling faster than they can beproduced. We dont advertise our wine, we dont do any marketing,says Mahendra Mehta, Britain manager for Omar Khayyam, the flagship from the ChateauIndage group in Narayangaon. We sell every bottle we make, our problem is producingenough to sell. After Omar Khayyam come Anarkali and Soma. And if your Frenchisnt any good, you can get Chhabri, Marquis de Pompadour, Joie, Chantilli, RivieraRene Dor. There is a certain French influence on the names, a Vinapolismanager says. And at least with Omar Khayyam, also with the taste.
Some of the other wines havent come anywhere near Omar Khayyams run. Buttheyre working on that in Narayangaon and in the Sahyadri Valley where it islocated. And theyre getting all the help they can from the Maharashtra government.Indage supplies wines to about 70 per cent of the Indian market and dominates theexport market. We aim to produce two million bottles a year for the export market inthe next three years, says Mehta. The expansion is being led by Sham Chougule, whohas imported a new winery following rave reviews for Omar Khayyam in the wine media.
A few years ago, no one wanted to touch anything called Indian wine, saysMehta. It is now going up and up. About two-thirds of the sales of OmarKhayyam are still in Indian restaurants. But it is finding its place now as a stand-alonewine. The Asda chain of supermarkets has begun to stock it. Now Safeway wants to sell OmarKhayyam, following high customer demand.
Also, Indage is doing a deal with vineyards in France, Germany and California toimport their wines. Our produce will be for export only, a trade officialsays. That way, we will meet the growing demand for foreign wine in India and forIndian wine in foreign countries. India is at the heart of the exhibition of NewWorld Wines at the Vinopolis. Images of India and pictures of bottles that arentavailable yet promise to uncork new business opportunities. Weve lost a lot oftime getting into this market, the trade official says. But the future is nowlooking bright. It sure is.